When will D&C 132 be removed or modified?

[BlueHair]

I think eventually the D & C and Pearl of Great Price will be de-emphasized. It would be as simple as not selling quads and turning Sunday School into BOM and Bible studies only. The church could just say that we need to focus on the teachings in those two books and suggest people read the D & C and PoGP on their own. Few people would actually do it and soon they would become a distant memory.

[shobeewan]

is that Joseph was a prophet of God. As a prophet his calling was to restore the fullness of the Gospel. I know I am going to be called a simpleton, and naive here on this fine board, but part of the restoration of all things was section 132 and the doctrine of plural marriage. Why would we throw that away? Should we also throw away the numerous times that Joseph is the one who is being condemned? How about poor Martin Harris? How about we just make all of the scriptures politically correct and friendly by taking out anything that anyone could possibly find offensive, it would be much easier to read and quicker for that matter.

It may be uncomfortable for members of the church to discuss, I personally have never had a problem with plural marriage. The Book of Mormon and D&C make it perfectly clear what the purpose of it is and was, and that is good enough for me.

[ChinoCoug]

Originally Posted by BlueK

So does the Reorganized church, I mean Community of Christ. They've changed a lot of things beyond recognition.

and look what happened to them.

[SoonerCoug]

Originally Posted by shobeewan

is that Joseph was a prophet of God. As a prophet his calling was to restore the fullness of the Gospel. I know I am going to be called a simpleton, and naive here on this fine board, but part of the restoration of all things was section 132 and the doctrine of plural marriage. Why would we throw that away? Should we also throw away the numerous times that Joseph is the one who is being condemned? How about poor Martin Harris? How about we just make all of the scriptures politically correct and friendly by taking out anything that anyone could possibly find offensive, it would be much easier to read and quicker for that matter.

It may be uncomfortable for members of the church to discuss, I personally have never had a problem with plural marriage. The Book of Mormon and D&C make it perfectly clear what the purpose of it is and was, and that is good enough for me.

People used to justify the Blacks and the priesthood ban 40 years ago based on scriptural references and the words of prophets as well. Members of the Church were opposed to changing something that was an obvious, horrendous abuse because "God wanted it that way." The Book of Mormon also makes the curse of dark skin absolutely crystal clear, does it not?

It's no coincidence that the priesthood ban against blacks was removed only AFTER there were already many blacks who had the priesthood, because it became difficult to enforce the one drop rule in places like Brazil.

Can you think of ANYTHING that the Church has changed for the sake of political correctness that was central to our faith and directly revealed by God?

I'm convinced that the only reason the Church is slow to change on certain social and cultural issues is that there are concerns about how the testimonies of members would be affected. In my opinion, the sooner people are genuinely committed to the truth AND facts, the easier it will be for the truth and goodness to prevail. Only a superficial testimony would be vulnerable to superficial changes.

My grandmother grew up in a polygamous household (one of the later post-manifesto northern Mexico Church-sanctioned polygamous families--the Eyrings), and she thought polygamy was HORRENDOUS and also full of abuses. Speaking of which, I wonder what percentage of the apostles have polygamous grandparents. It's got to be at least 20-50%.

Lastly, I always find criticism or finger pointing at the Community of Christ to be just plain silly. There is no other faith on earth that shares more with us, despite our divergent paths. Why wouldn't we feel that it is an honor that we have a common heritage?

I think most Mormons believe that the LDS Church itself hasn't changed dramatically over the last 150 years, and that's just silly. The C of Christ has changed. We've also changed. The FLDS have probably changed the least. Of course the changes we have undergone aren't reviewed in sunday school, so it may require a little more attention and searching to see them.

[SoonerCoug]

Originally Posted by BlueHair

I think eventually the D & C and Pearl of Great Price will be de-emphasized. It would be as simple as not selling quads and turning Sunday School into BOM and Bible studies only. The church could just say that we need to focus on the teachings in those two books and suggest people read the D & C and PoGP on their own. Few people would actually do it and soon they would become a distant memory.

The D&C + the POGP have too much good, important stuff, though. Without those books, it becomes much more difficult to interpret certain issues in the BOM and Bible. I suppose we have plenty of prophet quotes that aren't in those books, though, so maybe we could survive without them too.

In any case, our theology has grown less and less complex over the years in order to accommodate huge numbers of converts. I think the complexity of our theology is one reason why educated people are often more likely to be "religious" in Mormonism, while it's the opposite in most other religions. I dread the simplification of our theology, although it's probably a good thing from a practical point of view.

My evolution professor at BYU always talked about how he was on the committee to make Sunday School manuals for years. This guy would talk about how when he was in his 20s, sunday school and priesthood consisted of deep discussions of very complex doctrinal issues. He said the discussions were really fulfilling and interesting and many different points of view were expressed. This sort of tradition might have persisted a bit longer in high priest groups, where there were sometimes angry doctrinal arguments among the old fogies (according to my dad). The Church has gotten rid of a lot of the complexity, so now we're dealing with groundhog day (but we're also dealing with the most important issues as far as righteous living and having a good life, which is much more important than doctrinal complexities of course). Anyway, this "simplification of church lessons" idea is all based on hearsay, so someone correct me if I'm wrong.

[Tex]

Originally Posted by SoonerCoug

Well, Mormonism is about searching for truth and personal revelation--and anything good or praiseworthy--yet another beautiful, relatively flexible concept. But having verses like these in modern scriptures hurts the world's perception of the Church (but only because the verses are just 170 years old). If those verses were in the old testament instead, I probably wouldn't be worried about them, since I basically ignore anything crazy that's in the old testament anyway.

It's just too bad God didn't take into account the impact those scriptures would have on the 21st century Church's image. Hopefully we'll get a PR-sensitive prophet in the near future who will be "inspired" to tidy up such nasty and inconvenient little passages as these.

[shobeewan]

Originally Posted by SoonerCoug

People used to justify the Blacks and the priesthood ban 40 years ago based on scriptural references and the words of prophets as well. Members of the Church were opposed to changing something that was an obvious, horrendous abuse because "God wanted it that way." The Book of Mormon also makes the curse of dark skin absolutely crystal clear, does it not?

It's no coincidence that the priesthood ban against blacks was removed only AFTER there were already many blacks who had the priesthood, because it became difficult to enforce the one drop rule in places like Brazil.

Can you think of ANYTHING that the Church has changed for the sake of political correctness that was central to our faith and directly revealed by God?

I'm convinced that the only reason the Church is slow to change on certain social and cultural issues is that there are concerns about how the testimonies of members would be affected. In my opinion, the sooner people are genuinely committed to the truth AND facts, the easier it will be for the truth and goodness to prevail. Only a superficial testimony would be vulnerable to superficial changes.

My grandmother grew up in a polygamous household (one of the later post-manifesto northern Mexico Church-sanctioned polygamous families--the Eyrings), and she thought polygamy was HORRENDOUS and also full of abuses. Speaking of which, I wonder what percentage of the apostles have polygamous grandparents. It's got to be at least 20-50%.

Lastly, I always find criticism or finger pointing at the Community of Christ to be just plain silly. There is no other faith on earth that shares more with us, despite our divergent paths. Why wouldn't we feel that it is an honor that we have a common heritage?

I think most Mormons believe that the LDS Church itself hasn't changed dramatically over the last 150 years, and that's just silly. The C of Christ has changed. We've also changed. The FLDS have probably changed the least. Of course the changes we have undergone aren't reviewed in sunday school, so it may require a little more attention and searching to see them.

And all of the scriptures that you mentioned have been dropped? That sir is my point, there hasn't been a change in scripture, with uncomfortable scriptures being dropped just because they could offend someone. Whether you agree with a point of doctrine, or church policy isn't the standard for whether it should be retained in scripture.

When you say "I think most mormons believe that the LDS Church itself hasn't changed dramatically over the last 150 years" what do you base that belief on?

[Mormon Red Death]

Originally Posted by SoonerCoug

The D&C + the POGP have too much good, important stuff, though. Without those books, it becomes much more difficult to interpret certain issues in the BOM and Bible. I suppose we have plenty of prophet quotes that aren't in those books, though, so maybe we could survive without them too.

In any case, our theology has grown less and less complex over the years in order to accommodate huge numbers of converts. I think the complexity of our theology is one reason why educated people are often more likely to be "religious" in Mormonism, while it's the opposite in most other religions. I dread the simplification of our theology, although it's probably a good thing from a practical point of view.

My evolution professor at BYU always talked about how he was on the committee to make Sunday School manuals for years. This guy would talk about how when he was in his 20s, sunday school and priesthood consisted of deep discussions of very complex doctrinal issues. He said the discussions were really fulfilling and interesting and many different points of view were expressed. This sort of tradition might have persisted a bit longer in high priest groups, where there were sometimes angry doctrinal arguments among the old fogies (according to my dad). The Church has gotten rid of a lot of the complexity, so now we're dealing with groundhog day (but we're also dealing with the most important issues as far as righteous living and having a good life, which is much more important than doctrinal complexities of course). Anyway, this "simplification of church lessons" idea is all based on hearsay, so someone correct me if I'm wrong.

they always did it better in the old days...or so they say

[SoonerCoug]

Originally Posted by Tex

It's just too bad God didn't take into account the impact those scriptures would have on the 21st century Church's image. Hopefully we'll get a PR-sensitive prophet in the near future who will be "inspired" to tidy up such nasty and inconvenient little passages as these.

It's not like there aren't other things that have been tidied up--some of which are at the same or higher level than scripture.

Once again, you are proving to me that you are completely out of touch with reality.

[JohnnyLingo]

Originally Posted by SoonerCoug

It's not like there aren't other things that have been tidied up--some of which are at the same or higher level than scripture.

Once again, you are proving to me that you are completely out of touch with reality.

Here's my question:

D&C 132 begins with "thus saith the Lord." Joseph Smith says that the entire section is directly from God. You seem to believe it is not.

That means you are accusing Joseph Smith of being a liar and making it all up.

If that's true, why are you a member of the church? The belief that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God is a rather basic part of being LDS.